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2K Marin's return to rapture is "every bit as engrossingly mysterious" as the original game, "if not more so," says Xbox World's 90% verdict, which calls the two BioShock entries "as inseparable as Daddy and Sister".

While the return to the underwater setting feels overly familiar, the mag says "this won't disappoint BioShock fans," adding that the multiplayer mode is "different enough that is should establish at least a small, loyal online community"

It's a much more tactically interesting game, rarely penning you into corridors from whose ends murderous Splicers charge. Instead, your progress through a level tends to involve inhabiting a sprawling zone filled with choke-points and wide-open arenas, in which enemies constantly and invisibly respawn, for a good half hour or hour. BioShock 1 was about plodding forward motion, but this is about turning large spaces into sustained battlegrounds.

It's going to be a familiar experience for anyone that played the original, but BioShock 2's improvements to gameplay and its more focused storyline make for a game that's more playable and easier to digest. Some of the sense of awe and mystery is lost in transition, but the strength of the setting and more interesting implementation of moral choice make for an experience that's more consistent and rewarding.

The single-player campaign is still the main event. It will and should be damned for its long, slow start, during which the game struggles to make its intentions clear, but once past that the developers find a new tempo that wrings just enough extra quality out of the existing framework to justify your patience, even if the game still feels flat in the context of more daring and elaborate sequels like Mass Effect 2 and last year's Assassin's Creed follow-up.

The story overall left me with the same impression: it's not a deep story that just happens to be a game -- it's a game with a story that's there to serve those game mechanics. The voice acting is superb, and the lighting and scenery in each stage lend the world personality, but it's all personality borrowed from the first game.

I can’t stress this enough – as a game about shooting people, it’s very responsive and very rewarding. As a game that’s like System Shock 2: it’s not at all. It takes Bioshock even further in the direction of pure-combat, which means anyone who’s spent the last two years filling forums with spite whenever the first game is mentioned will only feel more ostracised by this, by the step down in spooks and unforgettable moments in favour of out’n'out action

As with the original Bioshock, it's going to be a while before you fully understand where you are and what you're seeing. If you recall your disappointment at how the first game wound down, rest assured that won't be the case here. This is a lot of the beauty of Bioshock 2. It's full of its own surprises, twists, and reveals. It's no mere retread. Like all the best sequels, it is its own game, with its own perspective, its own themes, its own gameplay. And like the original, it goes from being a fantastic shooter to an astonishing and poignant revelation that videogames can have powerful, relevant, memorable stories

Rapture is a dark, dismal world that envelopes you with a blanket of isolation--excellent art direction, a great soundtrack, and a fantastic voice cast all team up with a powerful story to create an atmosphere so thick and intense that it is at times downright chilling.

Read the rest at Metacritic. I'll update the post with more scores as they come.

Hmm. IGN UK's quote is especially interesting, but not necessarily in a good way. Running around for an hour in one area just fending off attacks? Seems like it would get old rather quick. Hopefully, that's not all you do during those times.

Originally Posted by Jason Moyer

I'm glad IGN US gave it a 9.1. I was a worried it would only get an 8.9 or a 9.07 but 9.1 has me looking forward to it. It definitely doesn't have the aura of overratedness that you get with a 9.13.